


Wake Up

by Cy_Fi_TheAnswerIs42



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Aaaahhhhhh did I tag everything???, Also time to throw in my headcanons for Leo's injuries, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-14 18:36:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18953455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cy_Fi_TheAnswerIs42/pseuds/Cy_Fi_TheAnswerIs42
Summary: (Set after the Season 2 Finale and after the 1st episode of Season 3 for TMNT 2012)Donnie should have listened, or compromised or...just did something else. Anything else other than argue with Leo. Maybe...maybe then he wouldn't be stuck unconscious in a bathtub.Maybe then Leo would be ok.





	Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> I think I got all of the tags, but if there's anything I missed, let me know!

It had been two months.

Two months since they left the city, forced away from the only home they had ever known, Splinter gone and Leonardo unconscious with no sign of waking up. Donatello spent every waking moment trying to create new medicines, researching and experimenting with even more limited resources than before (which spoke volumes about their current situation), just trying to find something that would help his brother.

(Nothing worked. No change in condition for better or worse, no indication that the eldest would ever open his eyes again. There was no way to tell if anything Donnie was doing was helping or hurting and it was driving him up the wall, he just wanted Leo to be ok. Just wanted to know that after the worst mistake he’d ever made, that he was doing _something_ right...)

_It was another late night in a string of sleepless nights, trying some other combination of mutagen and traditional medicines in an attempt to find something that helped Leo. Donatello stifled a yawn as he carefully added a spoonful of the glowing substance into the mixture. He took a small sample and placed it under the microscope, feeling that familiar flicker of hope that this time it would work. As he looked at it, his breath caught in his chest._

_“I…I think this might work.” Donnie muttered to himself as he looked again. “Hehe, this might actually work! I’ve got to get this up to Leo and-”_

_It was that moment he heard screaming from the house, the sudden unfamiliar pain-filled shrieking of his immediate older brother momentarily stopping his heart. He took off like a shot, vial of medicine in one hand and bo staff in the other, third eyelid obscuring his iris and pupils and scanning his environment as he approached the house, every fiber of his being on high alert for possible threats. As he entered the farmhouse, Raph’s shouting stopped and was replaced by his younger brother’s wailing pleas, a sound that sprouted ice in Donnie’s veins and had him rushing up the stairs. As he turned towards the bathroom, he stopped, frozen in place._

_Casey was holding April close, and the initial flare of irritation Donnie felt died out as he saw the tears streaming down her face, heard her gasping sobs. Put two and two together as Casey looked at him before looking away as his face crumbled with sorrow. Donatello rushed into the bathroom, logic taking the cues surrounding him and telling him what he never wanted to hear, emotions screaming for opposite, and for once, he hoped with every fiber of his being that he was wrong._

_“Please Leo, you can’t, please…” Mikey pleaded, holding Leo’s too pale hand as he kneeled next to the tub, his voice cracking and wavering. Raphael kneeled next to his overturned stool, bowed forward and shaking, head held in his tremoring hands, curled in on himself as if to block out the world._

_As Donnie rushed into the room, Michelangelo turned, tear-filled eyes flashing with something desperate as he spotted Donnie._

_“Donnie, you- you have to…help him D, **please!** ” _

_Donatello quickly moved to the tub, sliding on his knee pads slightly as he kneeled, quickly figuring out exactly what the problem was._

_Leonardo wasn’t breathing. Didn’t have a pulse either. He was…_

_Donnie quickly lifted Leo’s head, tilting it so he could pour the medicine down his throat, hoping that the mixture wouldn’t go down into his lungs and cause him to choke ** ~~if~~** when he started breathing again, that he would swallow it instead. Hyperaware of every second (too many statistics of injuries caused by lack of oxygen to the brain, of death, and he wished he could think of something, **anything** else), Donnie looked for some sign of life from Leo._

_Nothing._

_“No no no…” Donnie whispered, closing his eyes for just a moment, trying to re-center himself in this horribly off-kilter world, because this wasn’t supposed to happen, where did he go **wrong** it should have **worked** this time, and what were the steps for CPR again, why can’t he remember them? He opened them, ready to get his brothers to help him get Leo out of the tub because they needed to do something fast and-_

_Leo was gone._

_The tub was empty, no sign that the eldest had ever been recovering there. Donnie turned, panicked question at the ready and-_

_His brothers were gone too. No sounds from the door, no humanoid shadows cast, no signs of life, April and Casey were gone too._

_Donnie was alone._

Donnie jerked up with a gasp, heart pounding against the inside of his plastron, the bathroom where Leo was recovering replaced with the barn, chemicals on the work bench in front of him instead of an empty tub. Propping his elbows on the desk he placed his head in his hands, taking a shuddering breath in.

Just a dream. That’s all it was.

Donatello stood up from the workbench, speed-walking back towards the house. Logically, he knew it was just a dream. Also logically, he knew that almost anything could have happened during whatever duration of time he was asleep, no matter how statistically improbable. He needed to be sure.

He entered the bathroom quietly, spotting Raph still sitting on that stool, now with his shell to the wall, his chin resting against his plastron, and breathing deeply. Hopefully he was having better dreams than Donnie. He made his way over to the tub where his oldest brother slept.

Leo was still, face relaxed, the same expression that had been resting there for the past two months still there. Donnie pulled out his t-phone, running a stopwatch as he felt Leo’s pulse and timed his breathing. No change.

Still nothing.

-TMNT-

It had been a little over three months.

Leo was finally awake, finally with them again, but with waking up came new challenges. His body was still healing and new, unforeseen effects of his injuries were brought to light, like the change in his voice. Donnie couldn’t do any in depth examinations with the lack of equipment here (couldn’t check, couldn’t be _sure_ , couldn’t _know_ ), but he could take the medical knowledge he already had to assess and treat the injuries, and what he didn’t know, he could research. Best guess so far for Leo’s voice: partial vocal paralysis; explains the change in voice, throat pains, vocal fatigue, and occasional loss of voice; caused by repeated blows to the chest when he was attacked which in turn caused the possible nerve damage that would result in partial vocal paralysis.

As he thought about this, how he couldn’t know for sure and just had to make his best guess, he had to wonder if there was anything else he was missing. What if Leo’s weakened state was more than just the results of being in a coma for three months? What if there were more injuries that if left untreated would lead to permanent damage?

What if for once this was a problem Donnie couldn’t fix?

-TMNT-

_In the back of his mind, Donatello knew this was a nightmare, the same nightmare that awaited him every time he closed his eyes. That didn’t stop his heart from pounding and his hands going cold as he walked past a teary-eyed April into the bathroom where Mikey was crying for Leo to wake up while Raph faced the ground. He poured the medicine down Leo’s throat, trying to ignore just how much colder his brother was._

_He blinked, and Leo’s hand shot out of the tub and grabbed his throat. Now Leo wasn’t cold, wasn’t still as death with silvery scars littered across his body, but covered in the same fresh injuries sustained the night they fled, so much ** ~~too much~~** red on green with smatterings of blue, yellow, and dark purple like some sickening Christmas display._

_“This is your fault!” Leo’s unfamiliar voice scratched out, and as Donnie looked his brother in the eye, all he saw was hatred._

_“Leo…” Donnie tried to say, but couldn’t get anything out with the vise Leo had on his throat._

**_Crunch_**  

“Leo!” Donnie bolted upright, his hands flying up to his throat as he gasped for breath. He quickly got out of bed, silently heading for the room where his oldest brother had been sleeping. (This was the routine now it seemed; collapse from exhaustion, experience that nightmare again, then check to make sure Leo was fine… make sure nothing else had gone wrong in the short time he let his guard down.) He made the distance in seconds, quietly opening the door just enough to spot Leo. The turtle in question was asleep, his chest rising and falling in time with slightly raspy breaths. Donnie stood there for a moment, timing the breaths, listening for other sounds, adding raspy breathing to the list of symptoms and frowning as he realized that was another effect of vocal cord paralysis.

With a soft sigh, he shut the door and walked down back down the hall, bypassing his room and heading for the stairs. After a dream like that he wasn’t getting anymore sleep. Besides, he had research to do, he owed Leo that much.

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading through my notes for this and I had this written "Crunch (Don’t you mean…Cronch?)" in the second nightmare bit. Lol, why am I like this? XD


End file.
